The more audiovisual expression becomes, the harder it is for the young to discover the virtues of reading and writing. Oral language alone is unable to sustain the kind of information that must be passed from generation to generation through transactional writing. From the student's point of view, the written language is essential to extended investigation. The impersonal written language of public expression, while it does not possess the immediacy of the spoken form, provides an essential neutrality and permanence. (KS)